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MRM

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May 16 MRM commented on That's a Clown Social Networking App, Bro.

Saudi Arabia is far and away the richest country on my "Oh hell no, not in a million years" list of places to never set foot in.

May 14 MRM commented on Welcome News for People Who Like Foods That Taste Good.

One thing you learn when you start delving into the world of nutritional science is that there's not always a lot of science involved. Double blind control studies on diet are almost impossible to do and are very expensive, so lots of recommendations are extrapolations on extrapolations. And hey, if we recommend limiting a certain substance (salt, cholesterol, fat, etc.), but don't see any positive results, it probably just means we neet to limit that substance even more. That's the ticket, right?

May 14 MRM commented on "If it goes one inch further, I'm going to start killing people!".

Gun nuts have lost all perspective. They say that the 2nd amendment is so important because it's the one that protects all our other rights. So why haven't they taken up arms to defend the 4th amendment, which has basically been completely eviscerated over the past decade (and had been getting weaker and weaker for decades past)?

May 14 MRM commented on For the First Time in Six Decades, Americans Are Driving Less.

I'm mid-30s, not exactly a millenial, but I don't own a car for one reason: 50% of my income goes straight to paying off student loans. You know, those things you have to get in order to get the education that is supposed to get you the job that's definitely supposed to be better than your last job which was shipped overseas sometime last decade to line the pockets of the CEOs and the banks who are making a fine return giving out student loans?

May 13 MRM commented on Never Heard of 'Em.

Don't worry Anna, it's not really any good. Radiohead is the "Emperor has no clothes" band of our generation.

Don't get me wrong, they have some great songs. But their talent-to-adulation ratio is way out of wack.

May 13 MRM commented on Cultured Meat.

@14: So? Are we supposed to care what teens think?

May 7 MRM commented on Maybe the Recovery Would Be Doing Better Right Now....

But austerity is working so well in Europe, right?

Right?

May 1 MRM commented on DRM-Free E-books Are the Way to Go.

Cool story: I rented an ebook from my local library recently. The DRM was so fierce that I could only view it on my computer (like, how useful is that?). After over an hour trying to figure out how to see it on my phone, I gave up. If a fairly tech-savvy young user like myself has that much of an issue, how is the typical user supposed to figure it out?

tl/dr: yes, ebook DRM sucks.

Apr 22 MRM commented on Bombing Suspect Won't Be Tried as Enemy Combatant, Charged With Conspiracy to Use WMDs.

The expansion of the definition of WMDs is a good lesson on the way post 9/11 law enforcement powers creep to encompass more and more behavior. For a few years there after 9/11, WMDs were accepted as meaning only nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Now it is, as @5 snarks, anything that can kill more than one or two people at a time.

There's a reason to group nuclear, chemical and biological weapons separately. Is it necessary or logical to expand that group to include IEDs, grenades or even assault weapons?